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ASPEN, Colo. - About a dozen Winter X Games stars — more than a few of them owners of Olympic gold medals — were milling about the tent before the action began.Only one drew a crowd.Shaun White.Now 28 and coming back after the most humbling year of his life, White will be a multimillionaire megastar regardless of whether he wins or loses Thursday night, when he drops into the halfpipe for his first competitive trip since the disappointments of 2014.But behind the clothing lines, the guitar, the new life as an event promoter and those 1.46 million Twitter followers is one, simple fact: White wouldnt have any of that if he wasnt great on that snowboard.He doesnt want that to change — one reason he finds no use dwelling on his less-than-successful year.I guess, going forward, yeah, why look back? White said. I definitely learned some lessons and definitely feel better off than before, in a way. I think that, for me, it was a learning experience and Im pumped to be riding still.The inevitability that White brought to almost every contest he entered was washed away last year, with a series of injuries, falls, withdrawals and, finally, that fourth-place finish on the halfpipe that pushed the snowboarding world off its axis at the Sochi Olympics.He wasnt happy about it, said his coach, Bud Keene. Such is the risk you take when you put on a bib and lay it on the line. His career is far from over, athletically. Hes still, hands down, the best halfpipe rider in the world, and not by a small margin.For the first time since he won his first Winter X gold in 2003, there are some people who would argue that.Whites chance to end — or at least stall — that discussion comes at the event where he brandished his reputation with eight gold medals on the halfpipe, five more in slopestyle. (He has another two golds in X Games skateboarding.)But for the first time in a while, it matters who else is in the field.—Theres the Olympic champion, Iouri Podladtchikov — the iPod — whose invention of the 1440-degree Yolo spin, along with his ability land it in Russia when White could not, rewrote the book on 2014.—There are high-flying and technically precise Ayumu Hirano and Taku Hiraoka of Japan, who took silver and bronze in Russia last year, proving, if nothing else, that they could outscore White on any given day.—And theres the defending champion here, Danny Davis, who conceded after his win last year that it took a little of the thrill away because White had chosen not to attend while he prepared for the Olympics.Davis also struggled on that mushy halfpipe in Russia last year, falling on both his runs in the finals and finishing 10th.Some guys landed and rode well. Others didnt. Thats just the way it goes, Davis said.But the stakes, especially away from the halfpipe, are nowhere near as high for Davis, or iPod, or anyone, as they are for White.Such is the nature of celebrity.Before Wednesdays news conference, White posed for the most pictures and signed the most autographs, frequently handing his cup of hot tea off to a friend so he could grab a pen. When the questions started, he drew the most interest, fielding queries on topics that ranged from Russia, to fashion, to music, to his hair, to his pre-competition rituals.Currently, I dont have too many, he said of the rituals. Yeah, when theres a lot of contests, thats when it happens.But between business, music and, yes, practice, there havent been a lot of contests lately — or any — which makes Thursdays runs down the halfpipe that much more intriguing.He may have wiped away the past. A win might help his millions of fans do it, too.I guess in my mind, in some way or another, Ive kind of scratched it off, he said. It was a frustrating circumstance for me. In hindsight, you can always look back and question what you did. That was the beauty of being in the hunt of it.___Follow Eddie Pells on Twitter: http://twitter.com/epells Otis Sistrunk Jersey .com) - Houston Texans interim head coach Wade Phillips confirmed Monday that starting quarterback Case Keenum sustained a sprained right thumb during Sundays 25-3 loss in Indianapolis. Cheap Raiders Jerseys . LOUIS -- St. http://www.cheapraidersjerseysauthentic....tabler-jersey.C. -- Al Jefferson knows few people will be giving the Charlotte Bobcats a chance to upset the Miami Heat in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. Wholesale Raiders Jerseys . A receiver doesnt make the catch on a passing play and instantly motions to the ref – and everybody else – for a pass interference flag. Fred Biletnikoff Jersey . James scored 25 points against his former team, leading the energized Heat to a 114-107 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday night. Dwyane Wade added 24 points and Chris Bosh had 22 for the Heat, idle since a 90-84 loss Tuesday at Indiana.The Toronto Maple Leafs are in a state of flux right now. On one hand, we know what this team is – a collection of average or subpar possession players who need to rely on either incredibly hot shooting, incredibly hot goaltending, or a collection of both to win hockey games. On the other hand, I would still consider this a team in the abyss between contender and pretender. They banked a ton of points early in the season, and the bottom of the Eastern Conference doesn’t exactly offer much of a threat. To Toronto’s credit, they have – this time around, anyway – recognized the team’s fatal flaw. They are consistently and emphatically out-shot on most nights. The organization’s efforts to target a couple of possession drivers this off-season (see Mike Santorelli and Daniel Winnik) have improved the team, marginally, at five-on-five. But, it’s not enough. Not yet, anyway. While it’s nice to have an improved bottom-six or a couple of decent third-pairing defensemen, most observers of the sport recognize that the team’s most frequently deployed players are going to be the ones creating the wins and losses long-term. Ice time is in direct correlation with game impact, and that’s why your first-liners and first-pairing defensemen are paid the most money. This is Toronto’s problem. The first-line is routinely caved in, and when the goals dry up, they certainly look the part of one of the worst top trios in the National Hockey League. To illustrate this, I graphed out the performance of each team’s first-line to start the year using RelativeCorsi% (team difference in Corsi% when a player is on the ice versus off) and RelativeGoal% (team difference in Goal% when a player is on the ice versus off). For Toronto, that’s the Bozak line (though I do note that the coaching staff has really started to give bigger minutes recently to the Kadri group). Let’s take a look at all thirty teams: It makes intuitive sense that first-line talent should out-perform second, third, and fourth-line talent on the same team. Look at the horizontal axis divide (“RelativeCorsi%”) and note how basically every team is better off with the first line on the ice than off. Only Florida, Buffalo, Arizona, and Toronto have first-lines generating unfavorable possession relative to their teammates. Of course, Buffalo and Florida’s first-lines are at least generating favorable goal differentials relative to the team average, and Arizona’s within the realm of break-even. Toronto’s top-line has been territoriallly bludgeoned all season long and, sometimes, it’s hard to explain why.dddddddddddd Phil Kessel is generally regarded as one of the league’s elite wingers, and it’s not as if James van Riemsdyk – who scored 30-goals one season ago – grades low on talent. This year, primarily due to an improvement in Toronto’s depth forwards, the front-line has been relatively more exposed – when the first-line comes off, Toronto’s possession significantly improves. And when the first line gets back on, possession significantly declines. The problem, as you might guess, comes on the defensive side of the game. It was the problem when Bozak and Kessel were united back in 2009-2010, and it’s progressively worsened even with the addition of van Riemsdyk on the wing. To show the line’s defensive woes, we can look at how teams have been able to generate shot-attempts against this trio over the years. For record, the average forward is on ice for about 55 shot-attempts against per 60 – we’ll use this as break-even in the graph below. I have long recognized that Kessel, Bozak, and van Riemsdyk likely possess slightly above-average shooting skill relative to the league norm, but I don’t think it’s nearly enough to offset how dreadful they are from a territorial aspect. Even if you subscribe to the theory that Randy Carlyle’s responsible for a collective possession drag, it’s not really a justification for how awful this group is defensively – for five years (and counting), their less-talented teammates have managed to perform significantly better in limiting shot-attempts against. I’m not sure what the coaching staff or front office does in the short-term – this is the roster that has been assembled, and aside from re-assembling the top-six to more prominently feature Nazem Kadri (which has been tried in the past), there’s not a whole lot you really can do other than hope and pray for another percentage-fueled run. But, I do think the data on this group is clear. There’s something of a hard cap on the shooting talent this group possesses, and because of that, it’ll never be enough long-term to offset just how appalling they are defensively. Further, based on the team’s logical and obvious commitment to star winger Phil Kessel, you can rest assured that the primary objective over the next year or two will be to hope for one of their young centre prospects to continue pushing into a top-six role, or send a collection of assets to another team to get that coveted first-line centre. 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